Marked for Oliver Middleton
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Boardroom7 May 2035
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Interim Coach has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Boardroom7 May 2035
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Market7 May 2035
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Newcastle Jets, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad7 May 2035
James Delianov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad7 May 2035
Joshua Laws falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Boardroom7 May 2035
Newcastle Jets release $1.4M for the manager
The board have put money on the table rather than an encouraging word. What happens to it now is somebody else's problem, and somebody else's job.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match23 Apr 2035
46 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad23 Apr 2035
Oliver Middleton: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Newcastle Jets have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad23 Apr 2035
James Delianov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Oct 2034
James Delianov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad16 Oct 2034
Karl Harry Leban falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad16 Oct 2034
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad18 Sep 2034
James Delianov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad18 Sep 2034
Joshua Laws falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad18 Sep 2034
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match25 Feb 2034
1‑4 against Adelaide United, and no complaints that would survive the replay. The manager spoke about character afterwards; the terraces used shorter words.
Player ratings27 Feb 2034
A defender's goal wins it for Newcastle Jets — 7.67
1 for Thomas Aquilina, marked 7.67, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Squad27 Feb 2034
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad27 Feb 2034
James Delianov was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad27 Feb 2034
Joshua Laws falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad27 Feb 2034
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match26 Nov 2033
9 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Match23 Nov 2033
Wellington Phoenix ended it 2‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Player ratings28 Nov 2033
Saad Moukachar ran the middle of the pitch — 6.68
He won it back and then made something of it, which is two jobs and the reason the scoreline looks the way it does. 19 combined actions and a mark of 6.68, and not one of them will make a highlights package.
Squad28 Nov 2033
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Newcastle Jets this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad28 Nov 2033
Words at Newcastle Jets training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Karl Harry Leban is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad28 Nov 2033
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings28 Nov 2033
Víctor Tabaoda was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.39. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Player ratings28 Nov 2033
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.09, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings28 Nov 2033
A performance of 8.00 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.